UPDATE: Daytime holiday hydro bill very small

Christmas lights

Chris Halliday

For the first year, the Optimist Club of Orangeville, which puts up the holiday displays on the Broadway median, have chosen to keep the lights on during the day. The town, and in turn taxpayers, will pay the hydro bill.

Town staff has crunched the numbers. To leave the holiday light displays located on the Broadway medians on 24 hours, it costs about 70 cents per day.
In past years, the lights were generally on for six hours per day. To power them for the extra 18 hours, it costs about 56 cents more per day.
“The convenience for the Optimist Club to spread some Christmas cheer is about half the cost of your small double double (per day),” town spokesperson Sheila Duncan said in an email, after relaying the numbers to The Banner.
To have the lights lit 24 hours a day from Nov. 16 to Jan. 1, it costs about $32.20. Leaving the lights on for an extra 18 hours per day will cost about $25.75 more in electricity than it did last year.
While the cost is minimal, it still begs the question as to whether the town, by leaving the lights on during the day, is setting a good example.
You have to look at the big picture, according to Coun. Sylvia Bradley, chair of the Orangeville Sustainability Action Team (OSAT).
“Consider the costs of having someone drive to the site to turn the lights on and then repeat the trip to turn the lights off each evening versus 56 cents,” Bradley said in a statement. “The Optimists took the initiative to purchase low voltage LED lights for the medians and that in itself sets a good example.”

There is no daylight savings for the town when it comes to its Christmas light displays on Broadway.
Besides any mechanical issues, the holiday displays found along the Broadway medians have been sucking hydro 24-7 ever since they were installed in mid-November.
Town spokesperson Sheila Duncan confirmed the displays, which are installed annually by the Optimist Club of Orangeville, are being left on during both the day and night.
“The Optimists have them operating all the time,” Duncan said in an email. “This is town-sanctioned.”
Following previous experiences with dangling wires, malfunctioning timers and the need for manual operation each evening, the Optimists decided to just leave the lights on during the day for the first time this year.
“It was easier. We tried timers the last two years in a row and the timers kept screwing up on us,” said Optimist Dennis Cox, chair of the Christmas in the Park event. “The decision was to just try it without the timers to see if it works better.”
While the low voltage LED lights don’t consume much power, the town is paying the hydro bill, meaning taxpayers are paying to power those lights during the day.
Acknowledging that fact, Cox used the club’s annual Christmas in the Park as an example. The display uses about 45,000 LED lights at KayCee Gardens during the month of December, but those lights are turned off during the day.
“It costs me about $600,” Cox said, referring to Christmas in the Park’s hydro bill.
It isn’t known how much it is costing the town to power the lights on the Broadway medians. For the last few days, however, it hasn’t cost anything.
Just like when they were set to timers, the lights began to malfunction sometime around Monday afternoon (Dec. 3). An electrician has been called in to investigate the problem.
“The entire system is malfunctioning, so there are no lights on in the medians,” Duncan said on Tuesday. “The electrical system is being checked today or tomorrow.”